Failing the Turing Test since 1986

Ink

It’s 11:29 and I should be sleeping, but I just came across a thing on Pinterest where you get a tattoo to match your baby’s birthmark. And I am agog. Is this a sweet idea or hideously disrespectful? The pictured tattoo was of a small, innocuous light-brown splotch on the hand. Would the mother have done the same thing with a congenital hairy nevus? What if the birthmark were shaped like a swastika? Is a birthmark tattoo more or less creepy than a wart tattoo or scar tattoo or ex-pimple tattoo? Would mother and child pose together in photos with birthmarks on display, wearing matching florals? I have a tiny Australia-shaped birthmark by my right elbow of which I’m quite fond (birthmark, not elbow); if my mortal enemy/raving fanboys/celebrity impersonator got one to match, could I sue for, like, copyright infringement? (Could Australia sue me?) I saw a thing once about a woman who got plastic surgery to look more like her daughter, and it was pathetic and unfortunate, but I suppose this is a different thing; more like adopting your child’s stutter in solidarity, which, though, I would not recommend. Or shaving your head when your friend does chemo. I’ve never quite gotten that – I suppose it’s a nice sentiment, but if someone tried it on me I don’t think it’d help my mental health. They’d probably look better bald than I would – anyone would look better bald than I would – and then I wouldn’t even have the comfort of thinking “Oh well, of course they look better than my puking, miserable self, they have hair.” You don’t see people offering to eat KFC so they can puke in solidarity with chemo patients, now do you? Or fake tummies with pregnant friends. Unless they do. How would one know, really. I wonder if it’s illegal to get a tattoo of a kidney-removal scar? You know how if they go in, they have to take the kidney out even if it’s healthy because future surgeons will look at the scar and assume they did? It was on M*A*S*H*. Well, a white-ink tattoo scar would be, like, medical fraud. Good insurance against kidney-stealing, though – although I suppose they’d just take the other one, unless you had two scars, in which case they’d probably be all “?”. SO MANY QUESTIONS. Ooh, I forgot to take my drugs.